its crucial importance, but rather that he approaches it with certain presuppositions which are not proper to the modern historical method; and, therefore, the modern historian will not find the argument convincing. But it by no means follows that the modern historian is right, or that Dr Gore is wrong. The claim of the modern historian to avoid all metaphysical presuppositions is, as we have seen, delusive. It is a question which set of metaphysical presuppositions is most likely to give truth. Probably each has its legitimate place. But the question must not be begged, and the problem of harmonising the two points of view is complex and difficult. The severest critics of Dr Gore's second volume are probably those who have failed to study it in close connexion with the first-and have therefore missed the point of both.

If Dr Gore's work has one inherent defect, it is to be sought in another direction. It is that he seems over-ready to treat the claim of the historical critics as merely what it professes to be, the claim of impartial students of fact, and to suppose that, when he has met that claim, he has disposed of the whole 'modernist' case. As a matter of fact, historical criticism is always more or less a philosophy in disguise, and, though Dr Gore very truly points this out, he hardly does justice to the philosophy in question. The implicit philosophy of the modern historian has really a most important significance for Christianity, and that by no means wholly on the negative side. Insisting on the uniformity of the natural sequences which govern events, it may reconcile this acceptance of uniformity with belief in God, by urging that God's method of action is the penetration of what is natural and human from within, not interference with it from without. A Christian interpretation of this doctrine of immanence will go on to point out that the method of penetration without intervention is peculiarly consonant with the conceptions of God as love and of His supreme selfrevelation as taking place in and through a natural human life. But it must hesitate to accept anything in the nature of miracle strictly so called, because this seems to imply a direct intervention from without upon the natural order, the idea of which is alien to its

religious philosophy. It can see the Godhead incarnate and supremely revealed in the human goodness of Jesus Christ and in the love which suffered, unsaved by any miraculous intervention, upon Calvary, but not in an apparent breach of the natural order of human birth, or in the resuscitation of a dead body, or again in the catastrophic marvels of Jewish apocalypse. Such things, it maintains, are alien both to the apparent constitution of the world and to the method and character of love pure and supreme. They can but detract from the true glory and wonder and mystery of the Godhead which reveals itself and acts towards man in the more than miraculous naturalness of the full Incarnation. They represent the relics of a different and less Christian conception of Godhead as reigning in autocratic authority above the clouds, not as permeating with its infinitely subtle and creative sympathy the natural order which it made.

From this point of view it appears that, if the objection to the strictly miraculous elements in the gospel-story were only recognised as being itself in essence philosophical and theological, it might be seen to be associated with a philosophy and theology which are, up to a point at least, deeply and constructively Christian. This Dr Gore will not admit. He is too ready to assume that those who are at issue with his arguments are necessarily at issue with Christianity, and not to notice that some of the views which he rejects may have genuine contributions to make to its interpretation. Many profound and difficult questions are raised by the form of 'modernism' just indicated. Ought we to conceive the character of God as pure love, regarding other attributes, such as power, holiness, and righteousness, as mere aspects or manifestations of love seen in different contexts and from different angles? Or ought we to regard the love of God simply as one divine attribute among others? Dr Gore often seems to incline to the second view. His opponents would uncompromisingly hold to the former. Of course,

But not always. On p. 156 of Belief in God,' 'Eternal Love' is used as simply synonymous with 'Perfect Goodness.' One regrets that the question thus raised is not further discussed.

even if we take the former view, we seem by no means driven to the modernist' inference that God's love has never performed a special intervention nor acted directly upon the natural order of events. The inference seems to suggest that God's love is patient and enduring, not actively going forth and coming down from heaven to initiate a new great work for the salvation of men. Nevertheless, the Cross, in which all Christians see the supreme act of the love of God, is also the supreme instance of His non-intervention. One could wish that Dr Gore had considered and met this whole point of view more sympathetically. He does not seem to be aware that there is a genuinely Christian case against miracles. His firm and uncompromising hold upon one singularly coherent and impressive philosophy of Christianity constitutes both the strength and the weakness of his work. The weakness, if such it be, does not assuredly lie in any reluctance to look doubts and negative conclusions in the face, but rather in an inability to recognise that there may be genuinely constructive interpretations of Christian faith, which differ from his own.

To turn from Dr Gore's book to Dr Headlam's is to turn from the work of the theologian to that of the historian. While Dr Gore writes theologically, but seeks to allow to history its proper sphere, Dr Headlam writes historically, but seeks to allow to theology its proper sphere. Dr Headlam is no less severe on the critics of the New Testament than is Dr Gore. But this

fact should not be allowed to obscure his adoption of the critical method. He not only treats the documents as the work of fallible men, but also the life they record as a human life. Yet at the same time he recognises the limitations and the possible insufficiency of this method. While as a historian he treats the life of Jesus as the life of any other man, he carefully guards himself against the assumption that it cannot show features unique in kind. He allows himself no presupposition either for or against the miraculous, and postulates only that the life of Jesus must be adequate to explain its results. But he sees that the method which he follows cannot properly deal with the miraculous at all, either by way of definite assertion or of definite denial;

and wherever he seems to find himself in the presence of miracle, he notes the fact and leaves open the decision of what actually happened. Dr Headlam's work, therefore, is more characteristically modern than Dr Gore's; for it is the modern genius to start from history and lead up towards theology in the interpretation of Christ's Person. Its great value is that it shows what can be done with the modern historical method when it recognises clearly its own nature and limitations. It is not too much to say that this is the most strictly historical and scientific work on the gospel-story which has yet appeared in English.

On some important issues Dr Headlam would seem to agree with the critics' rather than with Dr Gore. While doing full justice to the primitive character of the narratives concerning our Lord's birth and childhood, he is doubtful of their value as history, and, though he shows in an interesting way how the Fourth Gospel may often be used to supplement and even to correct the synoptic story, he does not attempt to suggest that it ought to be placed on a level with the first three as a historical authority. All the more impressive is his vindication not only of the substantial truth, but in many cases of the minute accuracy of the record of our Lord's words and acts which the synoptists have preserved. His wide knowledge of contemporary events and circumstances enables him to adduce much confirmatory evidence of great interest and importance. He argues powerfully against that over-rigid and pedantic interpretation of the two-document hypothesis, which is inclined to dismiss all that does not belong either to Mark or Q as necessarily of inferior authenticity. And his careful and illuminating study of the Feeding of the Multitudes is calculated to make any fair-minded critic think again before dismissing the so-called 'naturemiracles' as mythological accretions. In short, one hopes that Dr Headlam's book will dispose once for all of the delusion that the critical method, legitimately handled, must in the end lead to mainly negative conclusions. It is a pity that his study stops short at the Transfiguration; but this defect may be remedied by a subsequent volume.

Dr Headlam's theological inferences are necessarily

only suggested, not defined. But he leaves us with the impression of a life, definitely human both in its faculties and in its limitations, yet definitely also more than human in its transcending of those limitations without removing them. It would indeed be short-sighted to assert that such an historical study makes no contribution to the theology of the Incarnation.

On the whole, these books of Dr Gore and Dr Headlam taken together show a convergence between the theological and the historical lines of approach, which is full of hope for the future. Dr Gore's theology, it is true, does not quite meet Dr Headlam's history. It lays more stress on the distinctly superhuman element in our Lord's life, on His consciousness of His Godhead, on the supernatural character of His advent into the world. But the difference, though important, is one of emphasis rather than of principle. For Dr Gore, ever since the days of 'Lux Mundi,' has constantly insisted that the Incarnation of the Son of God must have involved the definite acceptance of human limitations; and Dr Headlam on the historical side, refuses to disparage the evidence that our Lord's words and acts did display a transcendence of those limitations such as no mere man could have achieved. A theology which can recognise more completely that God is love, and, as love, works characteristically by permeation and sympathy rather than by catastrophe and intervention, may soon be able to join hands altogether with a history more frankly ready to admit that God may act upon as well as through the natural order, and has once for all in the life of Jesus taken a great initiative in redemption, not wholly to be expressed in terms of natural uniformities. It is not for nothing that the Epistle for the Monday in Holy Week consists of Isaiah's vision of Jehovah returning in triumph from battle with His enemies. The picture of battle and triumph suggests a mighty and powerful intervention. The picture of the Cross suggests patience suffering to the end. It is for theology and history together to show how the life of Jesus Christ resolves the apparent discord into harmony.

OLIVER C. QUICK.